Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.
Editorials
Monday, April 24, 2000Reno made right call
in raid to seize ElianTHE Miami relatives of Elian Gonzalez lost physical custody of the 6-year-old but won a propaganda victory. By compelling Attorney General Janet Reno to order an armed seizure of the boy, they made the federal government look like a bully.The issue: Attorney General Janet Reno authorized an armed raid on the Miami home where Elian Gonzalez was living with relatives.
The truth is that it was the relatives' intransigence that was responsible for the unfortunate scene of little Elian being seized at gunpoint from the arms of one of the fishermen who rescued him on Thanksgiving Day from waters off Florida to survive his mother's desperate attempt to escape from Cuba.
There can be no doubt that Reno authorized the raid with the utmost reluctance and after giving the Miami relatives every opportunity to surrender the child peacefully. It was obvious that they had no intention of doing so.
They were holding Elian as a virtual hostage in defiance of the law even after the arrival of his father from Cuba. An attempt by the government to obtain custody of the child without the use of surprise and firearms might have resulted in injury to Elian, federal agents and others. As it turned out, no shots were fired and there were no injuries. It was all over in three minutes.
Republicans, including Texas Gov. George W. Bush, who condemned the raid by the Immigration and Naturalization Service disgraced themselves by pandering to the Cuban Americans, who are a significant factor in Florida politics. Vice President Al Gore, who had dissociated himself from the Clinton administration's policy for obvious political reasons, was no better.
But no one can discount the sincerity of the Cuban-American community in its passionate opposition to Fidel Castro's regime. These, after all, are refugees from Cuba or the children of refugees. They have come to regard little Elian's fate as a symbol of their struggle to overthrow Castro.
But the law says the father should have custody of the child unless he is shown to be unfit -- and no evidence of that has been produced.
The Miami relatives who have cared for Elian for five months had never seen the boy until he was rescued at sea. No reasonable person could accept that they have a greater right to custody than the father.
The Clinton administration has no desire to return Elian to Cuba, but the decision to stay in the United States or return to Cuba must be the father's. The asylum claim made by the Miami relatives in Elian's name is grotesque in the face of the father's desire to take the boy back to Cuba.
Janet Reno was faced with a difficult decision early in her tenure in the case of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. She made the wrong call then, with disastrous results. This time she made the right call.
Preparing Hawaii for
the new economyGOVERNOR Cayetano is trying hard to push Hawaii into the new economy, the fashionable name for the technological changes and their economic ramifications that are transforming the world. The efforts are starting to show results, but there is a long way to go.
At a meeting last week with Star-Bulletin editors, Cayetano presented a team of bureaucrats and legislators who are working with him to promote the new economy in various ways.
Editors learned about high-tech developments in higher and lower education, information for business, efforts to attract new-economy businesses through tax credits and other incentives and making government more efficient through civil service reform.
Of the list of goals, perhaps civil service reform will be the most difficult to achieve. Hawaii's main public employee unions are refusing to give up any benefits for their members and few legislators are likely to defy them.
One key to success certainly is education. Without suitable education, Hawaii's youth will simply be incapable of handling job opportunities in the new technology. New "virtual" programs in the high schools and community colleges are attempts to fill the gap. They must be supported and expanded.
Additionally, high-level research at the University of Hawaii could provide the scientific basis for new business opportunities. The university has made impressive strides in research in several fields with economic implications.
Hawaii must overcome the perception that this is a place to play, not do business. The recent meeting of the Pacific Basin Economic Council was a step in that direction.
BUT there is nothing like success for a few new economy companies based in Hawaii to encourage others to follow. That process may have already begun. The governor said he is receiving many more inquiries from high-tech companies now than a year ago.
The proliferation of activity in Silicon Valley and other high-tech centers has led some entrepreneurs to look elsewhere for less crowded, less expensive, more livable places to relocate. With the efforts now under way here, Hawaii should stand a reasonable chance to attract a share of those relocations. It wouldn't take very many to give the islands' economy a healthy boost.
Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited PartnershipRupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
